Hug
by onceandfuturewarlock
Summary: Merlin had a tendency to say some strange things, but- "You," Merlin jutted his chin out obstinately, and jabbed a resolute finger at Arthur, "owe me a hug." -but this was by far the strangest.


Merlin had a tendency to say some strange things.

Well, he said _stupid _things, for a start, things like _dollophead_ or _clotpole_ or, once even _goosebrain_—words that weren't actually _words_ at all, just a whole bunch of nonsensical gibberish, made-up, a few sounds he'd just smashed together when he felt he'd been using_ prat_ too much. He said treasonous things, too, of course, but_ that_ bit went without saying—he said things that could get him—_should_ get him, if Arthur was being honest with himself, the things Merlin said _should _get tossed in the stocks or dungeons or even outright hung for even letting the words pass his lips—things like _Arthur, if you get mud on your armor like this again, I'm going to kill you,_ or _Arthur, if you try to go on that dangerous quest, I'll drug your breakfast and lock you in your chambers and I'll tell all the guards you're enchanted so they know not to listen to you_, or once, even a _Arthur, the next time you say we aren't going to get ambushed by bandits and we get ambushed by bandits, I'm going to cut off your mouth and sew it back on inside out and upside down_—that one alone could have earned him about a thousand death sentences, but Arthur had been, much as he hated to admit it, highly entertained by it all the same.

Look, Arthur was trying to make a point here. The point was this. Merlin said things. Stupid things. Treasonous things. Things that would have had Arthur's father rolling in his grave should they ever reach his ears—_I'm not going to enchant a flagon of ale that never runs out for you, Gwaine, _or _how about if I just turn Lord Rodney into a toad and be done with it, come on, Arthur, he's insufferable, _or _damn dragon's being cryptic again—_

_But._ But Arthur had gotten_ used_ to it. Merlin had magic, and Merlin had a dragon—_two_ dragons, sorry—and Merlin was, whatever the idiot's own insistence to the contrary, some kind of—err, _royalty _to other sorcerers. Ruler. Monarch. Lord, maybe. King, perhaps. Arthur didn't know, and Merlin outright refused to admit to it, even when the druids' ambassadors dropped to their knees at the sight of him, and he turned several different shades of red in quick succession.

Getting off the point. Merlin said strange things, that was the point, things about destiny and magic and spells and dragons and coins and once and future kings. Arthur really didn't want to get into all of it.

But this—

"You," Merlin jutted his chin out obstinately, and jabbed a resolute finger at Arthur, "owe me a hug."

—this was by far the strangest.

Arthur raised his eyebrows. "Excuse me?" Of course, prophesized warlock or not, Merlin _could_ be a bit of a girl at times, but this was taking it a bit far, even for him. Maybe he was hearing things?

"You owe me," Merlin repeated, without missing a beat, and he seemed so indignant about the whole thing, Arthur was almost tempted to laugh, "you owe me a hug!"

Arthur blinked. All right, so he _wasn't_ hearing things. "What?"

"You hugged me," Merlin said, the perfect picture of dignified affront, "you hugged me, and _I don't even remember it_!"

"Merlin," Arthur set the latest report from Sir Tristan facedown on the desk—he had a feeling he wasn't going to be getting to the end of it anytime soon—and leaned across the polished surface to get a better look at the man, "have you been on the cider?" It was a bit of a low blow, and Arthur knew it, what with all the times Merlin had never_ actually_ been in the tavern, but it was the only rational conclusion he could draw.

Merlin had a way of looking at people, sometimes, like he was seriously weighing the merits of turning them into a roach. This was one of those times. "_No_, I_ haven't_," he said, with admirable composure. "And you know that, so stop being an ass, Arthur, it suits you a little too well."

"Merlin—!" Speaking of things that could get the man a thousand death sentences. Arthur decided perhaps the stocks were getting a little lonely as of late.

"Look, Gwaine and I were talking—"

"_Oh_," Arthur relaxed, and settled back in his seat. "That's it, then." He picked Sir Tristan's report back up. An invisible force plucked the paper from his fingers, and sent it fluttering out of his reach, facedown on the floor at Merlin's feet.

"Merlin!" Arthur glanced around for something to throw. Perhaps the inkwell?

"_Listen_!" Merlin put his hands on his hips. Had anyone ever thought to tell him how he looked nothing so much as an angry housewife when he did that? "Do you remember that time when we were out on patrol, and we got attacked by bandits—"

"Could you be more specific?"

"—_and_," Merlin continued, with another should-I-turn-him-into-a-roach look, "you and I got separated from everyone else, and I got hit by a mace, and then there was that big rock fall, and you thought I'd got lost—"

"Vividly," Arthur said flatly. It wasn't a day he liked to think about, to put it lightly.

"—only I didn't _actually _get lost, remember, I told you, Morgana found me, and she put that snakey thing in my neck that made me try to kill you and—"

"The point, Merlin."

The idiot must have realized he was rambling, because he stopped short. He even had the grace to blush. "Well." He huffed. "Gwaine tells me you hugged me."

_Oh._ So_ that's_ what they were getting at, then. Arthur's face began to burn like fire. "Gwaine," he said, as seriously as he could, and oh, he hoped to the gods Merlin couldn't see the flush crawling up his neck and flooding into his cheeks, "is about_ the_ most unreliable source in the entire kingdom, _Mer_lin."

Merlin must have expected the resistance, because he countered at once. "He seemed pretty sure of himself when he told me."

"Yes, and how many had he knocked back by that point?" Arthur sniped. Logic told him he should just swallow his pride and cop to it—fine, all right, so he'd hugged Merlin, but it had been quick and one-armed and decidedly very manly, and also, he'd thought the idiot was dead for the past three days, so that had to count for something, right?—but logic also said that if he _did_ swallow his pride and cop to it, Merlin would never let it go, and. Well. He couldn't have that.

"He was _sober_!"

"And you're sure it was _Gwaine_?"

"Arthur!" Merlin's hands were on his hips again. They were back to the angry-housewife stage.

Arthur bit back a sigh. "Look, Merlin, not that I don't love a nice stroll down memory lane every now and then, but I fail to see what this has to do with—"

"You hugged me!"

"That's still up for debate."

"And I don't even_ remember_ it!"

"Common occurrence for things that didn't happen." Arthur wondered if it was worth it to get up and get the report off the floor, or if he ought to just start on a new one.

"I don't_ believe_ it." Merlin collapsed into the seat opposite Arthur. "The _one _time you hugged me, and I don't even _remember _it."

"Merlin," Arthur dragged in a breath, and rubbed tiredly at the bridge of his nose, "if you're going to insist on spouting nonsense—"

The last dragonlord, the slayer of the High Priestess Nimeuh and the immortal sorcerer Cornelius Sigan and gods knew who else, the ruler-slash-monarch-slash-lord-slash-king to the magical community, the almighty warlock Emrys, gave what Arthur could only describe as a pout. "I deserve a hug that I _remember_."

Arthur ran out of patience. "I'm not going to hug you!"

The almighty warlock Emrys pouted harder. "I could die tomorrow, and if I did, I would go to my _grave_ without even the _memory_ of—"

"Merlin, you're immortal."

At least that seemed to pull Merlin from his sulk, because he snorted, and sat up a little straighter. "Yeah, I'm immortal if no one, y'know, stabs me, or poisons me, or shoots me, or starves me—"

"Yes, yes, I get the point," Arthur waved a dismissive hand, and tried not to dwell on the image the flippant words had conjured up of a bleeding and poisoned and arrow-ridden Merlin. "Look, I've got quite a lot of work to do, in case you haven't noticed, we can't all sit around practicing spells and riding dragons and getting worshipped by druids—"

Merlin turned red. "I-I'm_ not_—!"

"—so, if you won't leave, why don't you make yourself useful?" Arthur nodded at his favorite pair of boots at the foot of the bed, the leather tops still crusted over with a fair bit of mud from their last patrol.

Merlin slumped from his chair, slumped over to the boots, slumped to the floor at the foot of Arthur's bed, and slumpily picked up the boots.

_Slumpily. _Arthur stifled a groan. _Damn it, Merlin, you've got me using your idiotic made-up words now._

Arthur shook his head and returned to his reports. All thoughts of Merlin's terrible influence aside, maybe now he could actually get some proper _work_ done and—

His thoughts scattered to a million different corners of his mind when the soft, unmistakable swish of coarse bristles on dirty leather met his ears. Oh, for gods' sakes, what on _earth_ was the idiot playing at_ now_—?

"Merlin," Arthur looked up, "what are you_ doing_?"

"Er—?" Merlin lifted his head, his eyes decidedly on the hesitant side. "Polishing your boots? Like—like you said?"

Arthur frowned at the familiar sight—Merlin, sprawled at the foot of the bed, his back to the wooden frame, a polishing brush in one hand and Arthur's left boot balanced on his knee. It wasn't something he'd ever expected to see again, was it, not after—and he'd made it quite clear, hadn't he, he'd made it clear that Merlin could—? Well, perhaps he hadn't, it wasn't like they had really talked about it much, it wasn't like it was high on anyone's list of priorities when the truth had first come out, but—well—never mind, never mind, he'd set it to rights. "I—I don't mind, you know."

Merlin stared back at him blankly. "Mind?"

"The—erm—" Arthur held up a hand, and rather awkwardly wiggled his fingers. It wasn't anything like the baffling, complex, fluid sorts of motions Merlin did when he was casting spells, but the king was fairly confident it got the point across. "The magic. You can use the magic. To—to polish," he added, just to be absolutely clear. "I thought that's what—I thought that's what you'd—you know."

"_Oh."_ Merlin looked down at the brush in his hands like he hadn't even realized it was there. "All right, then." He shrugged, and he went back to polishing the boots. By _hand_. With the_ brush_.

Arthur ran out of patience. To be fair, it wasn't something he'd ever had in spades._ "Really_,Merlin?" He pushed his chair back from the desk, stalked over to the idiot—all crouched on the floor with his long legs tucked up to keep them out of the way—and snatched the half-done boot from his grasp. "For all your _incessant whining_ about chores, I'd have thought you'd jump at the chance."

A small smile flicked at the corners of Merlin's lips. "Well." He made a wide grab for the boot, and missed spectacularly. His abysmal aim, his nonexistent coordination, his complete lack of athleticism—the only things about him that hadn't changed. The reminder that somewhere inside the all-powerful sorcerer who spoke six different languages and cast magic more extraordinary than any High Priestess could ever hope to achieve, somewhere inside Emrys, there was still _Merlin_.

"I like," Merlin said, softly, "to do it by hand. I'm happy to be your servant," he added, sincerely, not a trace of mockery or mirth in his voice. "Until the day I die." The smile bloomed into full, brilliant being across his face. "It's an _honor _to serve you, Sire."

It wasn't the first time Merlin had said something like this—of course it wasn't the first time Merlin had said something like this, the man was an absolute girl's petticoat at the best of times, always with the _talking_, and the_ feelings_, and the heart on his sleeve sort of thing—but this was the first time he had said it with such feeling, and over something so simple. The _immortal warlock Emrys_ called it _an honor_ to _clean the mud from his boots_, and Arthur had to stop, and swallow hard, before he could speak again.

"You—" _say stupid things and mad things and treasonous things and you have magic and two dragons and druids worship you even though you cry when you see baby rabbits and you could rule a kingdom but you want to be a servant, you want to be _my _servant, you think it's an honor to be my servant_— "—are _such_ a _girl_, Merlin."

And maybe Arthur was a girl, too, because—

—well, because he maybe pulled Merlin into a hug.

* * *

**Notes: I have literally zero explanation for this bit of schmaltz, except that it occurred to me that, if Arthur had lived long enough to hear all of Merlin's magical adventures, Merlin would have 100000000% told him about the Fomorrah incident, and promptly demanded a redo hug once he heard about the one he didn't remember. GIVE MERLIN EMRYS A HUG 2KFOREVER ARTHUR. **


End file.
